In what could be the first acid test in his tenure as NBA Commissioner, Silver also fined Sterling $2.5 million.

NBA players and fans welcomed Silver’s decision to ban Sterling. Several notable former and current NBA stars took to Twitter to express their support on Silver.

The Donald Sterling controversy started with an audio recording published by TMZ. In the audio recording, Sterling made several racist comments like “do not bring black people to my games” and “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people.” These comments were said to be part of Sterling’s conversation with his girlfriend V. Stiviano.